Taking his own advise from last week to fight the blogroll heirarchy, Terrance of The Republic of T posted a top-ten list of best blog entries for the week. Says T, “there’s something to the old adage that it’s better to light a candle than to …

Jeff first cites a post in Terrance’s The Republic of T that asks “Are Blogrolls Hurting Us?” Terrance finds that many of his political-blog-minded & -minding friends are ridding themselves of the ‘roll. Of himself and his blog, Terrance writes,”T…

1. I like to be read by people who like the things I discuss (not much this week) or the things I have to say about them.

2. My only blogroll is my way of seeing who else writes the things I like to discuss, and a way of pointing other readers to the similar perspectives.

3. I am at best curious about shares, ratings, etc. In general, I am apathetic. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about A-list bloggers (or becoming one, or entering the race) any more than I care about the A-list anything (vapid houseparties at Rehoboth, you name it). Maybe critics could charge this apathy is because I could not win such a competition. But then, I don’t find my life lacking or deficient for not succeeding in that arena.

So, I have one blogroll as a useful resource. I don’t lose sleep over it. If people find me through it, yay! If I have something that someone is meant to hear, they’ll get to it eventually, blogroll or not.

I don’t blog, probably never will, but I like to read blogs. The main way I find new or different blogs is by blogrolls.

I don’t bookmark blogs because I use several different computers, with several different users and the bookmarks are limited to the sites we all use. I suspect that people who use truly public computers, as for example, someone who accesses the web from a library computer would have the same problem.

I don’t pay much attention to who is an ‘A list’ blogger or whatever. I read some blogs that interest me, some that I mostly agree with the opinions, some that I don’t. But almost all the ones I read regularly I’ve found through a blogroll, not a reference in a post. No blogroll=lost reader, at least as far as this reader.

The internet is about connectivity. We should link to things that we want to be connected to (even if we don’t necessarily agree with whatever it is being linked).

As the internet becomes more and more mindless (i.e.: all of the new spam-blogs on blogspot, which are essentially nonsense non-human methods of trying to jam google), it is important that we become more and more mindful. Perhaps by focusing on thoughtfulness, on distinctive voices.

Blogrolls are a tool. Use them wisely. But don’t think of them as use-less.

best.

I also have no interest WHAT SO EVER in increasing my “ratings”. In my opinion, if you are blogging to increase your ratings, you are blogging FOR THE WRONG REASONS! I blog because I have something to say. If people want to hear what I have to say, they will read it. If not, they won’t. I don’t care. What I do care about are people like the 16 year old boy that decided not to commit suicide after reading one of my articles. He wrote me a letter and quoted from the article – an article that I had put out there a year before, and had completely forgotten about. Words are power – don’t ever forget that. I was going to stop blogging because I thought that it didn’t make anything better – it didn’t make a difference. Then, I got that letter.

For my site, I did buy a standard $49 search engine submission program. I could tell Google and other search engines about my site manually or have them discover it on their own, but I probably wouldn’t tell 3,000 search engines and sources about my site in a matter of minutes, the way it does. The results: last month I received just over one million hits to my site from 30 different countries (and a LOT from the US Military). And many are repeating readers.

As for Technorati and other ranking engines, I couldn’t care less if they say I am “A-1″ class or “crapper” class. Doesn’t matter to me because I don’t waste time of day wondering if they like me or not. I blog for my readers and myself – NOT THEM! I only go to Technorati to find out who is linking to me.

And I’ve always wondered… I know you read my site, but you have never blogrolled me. Something about me?? Hummm????

Some folks on my blogroll have very different viewpoints from me. Which is why I read them. Balance!

I’ve never cared for the “A-list” crowds of anything and blogging is no exception.

So, yes, A-list bloggers and blogrolls and all that…the question is whether A-list bloggers are effectively keeping people from reading my blog. This is hard to prove. I’d only be concerned if they were, otherwise I’m quite happy with being in a list of any alphabet after A. I _would_ like to be read however and have people comment…

As for blogrolling, I need to update mine, but I’ll continue to keep one of people whom I do read.

Perhaps you do have a niche, Terrance. I’ve met some neat and interesting people through your blogroll. I’m comfortable in doing a random click just to see where I end up. I do that sort of shit all the time.